be committed to doing / to do sth

[Duncan Powrie]

I suppose that ultimately, Andy, I can't see much difference in meaning between to-ing or to-infinitive; it was, rather, the huge difference in meaning between the verb in your example, and the adjective(?) in NicoBas's that caught my eye and incurred my comment, because any arguments to be made about meaning will presumably (need to) refer back to and be based on whole examples - right?

I would be suspicious of any approach that tried to assign meaning to "little" words without dealing with the bigger ones first (or at least at the same time), especially when those bigger words come first in the sentence. (When a form has two meanings, it would seem to make sense to put them into separate meaning groups).

Am I making any sense here? If not, I'll shut up!

[Andrew Patterson]

...it was, rather, the huge difference in meaning between the verb in your example, and the adjective(?) in NicoBas's that caught my eye and incurred my comment...

...Am I making any sense here? If not, I'll shut up!

You are very nearly making sense, but once again, I need specifics.

What is the specific phrase/sentence that you are refering to in Nico's post he gave more than one example with the past participle, and what is the specific phrase/sentence that you are refering to in my post? Specifically too, what group of words in Nico's post don't tally with what specific group of words in my post.

Specificaly, I still don't know why you've talked about the adjective sense in my post when I used the active voice. Right now I don't even know if it's concerning definition a) or b) or both. Please show me the problem like that, explaining why it is wrong and I'm sure that even specifically I will be able to understand.

Yours specifically,

Andrew Patterson.

[Duncan Powrie]

Oops. Actually the only example I can find of Nico's is "Both sides committed themselves to settle the dispute peacefully." (My mistake, sorry). Structure-wise, he seems to be concerned mainly with:

a) "be committed to doing sth" refers to energy, effort and time binding one to an ongoing activity, one that is already in progress;
b) "be committed to do sth" or "have a commitment to do sth" refers to a binding promise (can a promise be anythng but binding, I wonder?!) to do sth, to achieve sth not yet begun, only just outlined or proposed, to seek an outcome.

I wasn't talking about the adjective sense in YOUR post, Andy. I thought that would've been clear by now (anyone can see you used an active verb, and I indeed did mention that you had used a verb)! My mistake then has been to think Nico had used "adjectives" in his examples, when in fact he had used just a verb in the above example, and is concerned with "adjectives" in terms of "structures" only (no examples as far as I can see). Once again, my apologies for the confusion.

You then added your thoughts and expanded somehwat on what NicoBas had said:

a) When followed by the gerund, it means that the subject promises and binds themselves to carrying out the activity. I think that the activity does indeed need to be already on-going.

b) When followed by to and the infinitive, it implies that the committment is imposed externally, either because it has been mutually agreed and the subject feels beholden to the promise, or because it has been imposed by judicial authority. For instance, a judge might sentence someone saying, "I commit you to ten years hard labour." Thus the promise or the judicial authority are the external imposition.

.

I can see that people who "are committed to do/doing"/"commit themselves to do/doing"/"make a commitment to" etc are all committing to and indeed probably were already committed to ongoing activities/projects/committments etc; the problem I had and still continue to have is seeing how the "commit/consign/send/sentence"-meaning examples in your posts (whether active or passive) have much bearing on the notional area of "promises".

I think you can appreciate that sentencing somebody to hard labour is totally different from people making commitments/promises/undertakings/whatevers: punishments are always IMPOSED by judicial AUTHORITY (the feelings and commitments of the prisoner in the matter are irrelevant), whereas "promises" are notionally "voluntary". There does not therefore seem to be much point in including those examples of yours (especially as a basis for talking about obligation) - unless, as I said before, you are more concerned with the meaning of smaller words than bigger words (at the risk of perhaps divorcing things from meaningful or understood, given contexts).

Clear enough?

[Andrew Patterson]

As crystal.

[Duncan Powrie]

Really? As crystal?! Or are you being ironic? Either way, what I have written has brought about a reduction in the length of your posts (and a subsequent reduction in your use of bold lettering) for the meantime, so I am happy (it means I can now get to bed!)!

[Andrew Patterson]

...the problem I had and still continue to have is seeing how the "commit/consign/send/sentence"-meaning examples in your posts (whether active or passive) have much bearing on the notional area of "promises".

I think you can appreciate that sentencing somebody to hard labour is totally different from people making commitments/promises/undertakings/whatevers: punishments are always IMPOSED by judicial AUTHORITY (the feelings and commitments of the prisoner in the matter are irrelevant), whereas "promises" are notionally "voluntary"...

I was not being ironic, I think that that was a clear post. I haven't answered it yet, though. (I had other things to do.)

Nico's analysis hinged on the difference in meaning when commit is followed by a gerund and infinitive. (Actually it's a bit more complicated than that, and problematic from the viewpoint of fitting it into my Venn diagram because the form followed by the gerund is actually "commit to" and the form followed by "to" and the infinitive is "commit".) I have categorised other verbs in my diagram ending in "to" followed by a gerund as phrasal verbs ending in to: admit to, adapt to, adjust to, look forward to, object to, be accustomed to, be unaccustomed to and be up to.

Section 30 and 33 lists verbs with different meanings when followed by gerunds or "to" and the infinitive. I go into greater detail further below.

"To" has always been a problem. It can be a classic preposition ie showing spatal or time relations, it can show purpose and sometimes it isn't really clear what it does other than to form a phrasal verb, in such cases the meaning of the phrasal verb can't be worked out metaphorically as it often can with other prepositions. Now "to" always shows purpose when followed by the infinitive, but I think it might also show purpose when following "commit", when followed by either a gerund or an infinitive. This may be why some people are finding it difficult to perceive a difference in meaning.

So the question is:
1. Should I classify it as two verbs: "commit" and "commit to";

where "commit" is followed by "to" and the infinitive, and "commit to" is followed by the gerund; or

2. Should I classify it as one verb: "commit" followed by "to" and the infinitive or "to" and a gerund.

This purposeful use of "to" seems to be lacking when I compare "commit" to the other verbs ending in "to" followed by the gerund above, So I am tempted to use the second option.

So far I haven't explained how the "commit/consign/send/sentence"-meaning can have much bearing on (the notional area of) promises. (actually this is one thing I'm not absolutely clear about, what exactly do you mean by "notional area?)

The short answer is that the difference between the verb followed by:
1. (?"to" and) the gerund, and
2. "to" and the infinitive

is precisely the same as the difference between "must" and "have to"
must and commit followed (?"to" and) the gerund come from within. With "must" this is an obligation, with "commit" it is a strong intention or desire. "have to" implies an external obligation. You have to stop at traffic lights because it is the law.

Now to answer your question. When commit is followed by "to" and the infinitive it is always an external commitment. One can be beholden to a promise when one does not want to do it. Here one might regard it as a duty. You could say, I wish I hadn't promised to do that, but a promise is a promise so I have to do it. Call it a duty if you will it is still external.

A judge committing you to 10 years hard labour is more obviously.
external.

Now this internal/external distinction may not be as important as the difference in meaning of a promise and commit/consign/send/sentence, but remember at that point I was only explaining the difference in meaning when the verb is followed by a gerund or "to" and the infinitive, and these differences do hold.

You mentioned that you thought that I was focusing on the smaller words rather than the bigger words. In fact I was doing neither. My original post was focusing entirely on the differences in meaning resulting from differences in syntax. However, you are right that I should look at the meanings of the words themselves, and I intend to look at the differences between active and passive voice, between commit and have a commitment, etc, etc but not just yet because I think that I have written quite enough for now. Chomski thought that everything could be explained in terms of syntax, he was of course wrong, and eventually painted himself into a corner. I'm not going to fall into that trap.

[Duncan Powrie]

Your Venn diagram is impressive, Andrew, and I hope that you can iron things out without my explicit input (I am, as you might've already guessed, not much of a syntax man, so you are asking the wrong guy!). I do, however, try to follow and am not totally uninterested in what you have to say, and your musings and answers to your own questions make a vague kind of sense even to me.

Notions are not very well understood (certainly not as well as functions), but I was not using the term as an expert by any means, so again, I hesitate now to define them for you, but I don't think it would be inaccurate of me to say they just involve "thinking big". One of the few and clear references to them that I have seen was in Lewis's The Lexical Approach, where I seem to recall he widened the function (and exponents) of "Apologizing" into the notional area of "Apology" (which might include guilt, presents and present-giving to make things up with a friend, you name it). Other examples of notions are "Time" and "Space".

Anyway, I feel you are doing important work and hope that I can contribute at a later stage...but I can't just now (I also have typed a fair bit, and have got a bit of a headache coming on! ).

Friends?

Edited-in bit: Never fear, I wasn't going to tar you with the dreaded Chomsky brush, Andy, only people as unrelentingly evil as...well, Chomsky, deserve that.

Interesting bonus: I actually just then wrote "I wasn't about to tar you...", but changed it, feeling that "about" could also if not more imply reference to my potential/future posts, whereas "going to" here seems to feel much more about the past.

[woodcutter]

Actually, is corpus linguistics sophisticated enough to search for "committed to plus gerund" or "commited to plus infinitive", or can it only seek out specific examples?

If it can seek out "committed to plus infinitive", then I suppose it will tell us that the structure is rare. It also goes against the rules written down in prescriptive grammars. It is therefore somewhat wrongish, and probably best avoided, I should have thought. Since gerunds are usually a bit more concrete than infinitives, (he liked eating that ice-cream, not "to eat") then the infinitives will no doubt be more plentiful in more hypothetical situations. But, as Larry seemed to be saying, not to the extent that you could make a rule about it.

[Duncan Powrie]

Actually, is corpus linguistics sophisticated enough to search for "committed to plus gerund" or "commited to plus infinitive", or can it only seek out specific examples?

I guess that with a well-tagged corpus, you can do pretty much anything. You still have to make your own cups of tea, however.

And even with untagged corpora, you can specify multiple search items/collocations, and also the span from the node item etc (more sensitive than a simple Boolean AND), so finding items longer than single words shouldn't be too difficult.

[Andrew Patterson]

NicoBas wrote:

We normally say "sb is committed to sth" (e.g. she is committed to her family) where sth may be a gerund (e.g. she is committed to looking after her family). All this makes perfect sense as a gerund functions as a noun.
However, I have come across, much less frequently, "be (jointly) committed to do sth" or "have a commitment to do sth".

Unfortunately, perusing the Collins Cobuild, Longman Dic of Cont Eng, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary and the Webster have left me none the wiser on this issue! All confirm what I mentioned initially, i.e. that you can be committed...
a) to sth (to + noun)
b) to doing sth (to + gerund)

What appears in only ONE example (but not in any grammatical directions) is:
c) be committed to do sth (full infinitive) (the example is: Both sides committed themselves to settle the dispute peacefully.)
Conclusion: though "be committed to + infinitive" is not recorded anywhere as a possible structure, it does appear occasionally in actual texts.

So, upon close examination of the few examples I've come across, my conclusion is as follows:
It would seem to me that...
a) "be committed to doing sth" refers to energy, effort and time binding one to an ongoing activity, one that is already in progress;
b) "be committed to do sth" or "have a commitment to do sth" refers to a binding promise (can a promise be anythng but binding, I wonder?!) to do sth, to achieve sth not yet begun, only just outlined or proposed, to seek an outcome.

OK, I promised to analyse the meaning from the words rather than syntax only, so here goes. Before I do, though even my syntactic analysis was confined to gerunds and infinitives, so I would like to address the issue of active and passive voice first.

"be comitted to something is a passive construction, but it isn't the passive voice, can anyone help here actually. If I compare it to, I commit to do it, which although it is an unlikely construction, nevertheless keeps the same subject. This isn't middle voice either. any answers?

"Have a committment" seems to use "have" in its possessive sense, I said earlier that this form also implies a committment to both carrying out the action and a commitment to the person with whom the promise to carry out the action has been made.

I don't think that there was much controversy about, "I am committed to doing sth, I think everyone (with the possible exception of Larry) thought that the task had to be on-going, but that there was an internal commitment to complete the task. Inchoate!

There was a big controversy between me and Duncan about the difference between be committed to complete sth, and be committed to 10 years hard labour. In fact there was no need for the controversy, because the external nature of the committment in both resulted from the fact that it was followed by "to" and the infinitive. The problem of distinguishing meaning might actually be a pragmatic one rather than a lexical or syntactic one, however, because as Duncan already suggested, we have to "work out" that the committment can't be the fullfillment of a duty that the subject feels beholden to, instead it is a punative and coersive committment.

one of my minor subjects at university was human resources (when did we cease to be personnel and become resources? I never truely believed in the subject. Nevertheless I remember sth about three forms of committment:

Normative, Calculative and Coersive. Looking back I feel that there must be Motiveless, Reactive, and Instinctive committment too. There must also be mixed and weak and strong. (I think they mentioned weak and strong.) Additionally, I think that committment can be direct, or oblique. Thus being beholden to a promise might be normative or calculative, but the task gets carried out as a result of the commitment to the promise. I suppose it could also be coersive if someone made you an offer that you couldn't refuse.

The committment may not even be committment in the first sense of the word when someone is committed and normative, calculative, etc, may not even come into it. I is to me mearly a synonym for "sentence", and I don't mean on of those things beginning with a capital letter and ending in a full stop.

[Andrew Patterson]

I'm not sure that "lemma base" is the right word for this. A lemma is a mathematical theorem used to solve another mathematical theorem, if you can't decide which of two to use to solve a problem you have a dilemma I don't know what a lemma base is. A lemming is a small furry animal fabled to commit suicide en mass, but which doesn't really, I'm told that a film company drove some off a cliff in one of its wildlife "documentaries", though.

OK, I accept that lemma base is probably the best term here, but I thought you might like to look at how the lemming-suicide myth began.

The Film company that hearded the lemmings to their death in this Mickey mouse documentary was none other than Walt Disney.

http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Lemmings.html

[Duncan Powrie]

There was a big controversy between me and Duncan about the difference between be committed to complete sth, and be committed to 10 years hard labour. In fact there was no need for the controversy, because the external nature of the committment in both resulted from the fact that it was followed by "to" and the infinitive. The problem of distinguishing meaning might actually be a pragmatic one rather than a lexical or syntactic one, however, because as Duncan already suggested, we have to "work out" that the committment can't be the fullfillment of a duty that the subject feels beholden to, instead it is a punative and coersive committment.

Sorry to be going on about this still, Andy, but I really do not understand why you persist in seeing a sentence/punishment as being "a punative and coersive committment".

Edited-in bit: I would also question your use of "coersive" (presumably it is there only because it is a term from your studies, that you see a use for); as for "punative", well, the validity of that would depend upon the severity (or not!) of the crime!

[Duncan Powrie]

Oh, one more thing, did you know that there were THREE spelling mistakes in just that "a punative and coersive committment" bit I quoted from your post!!!

punItive
coerCive
commiTment



Edited-in bit:

I can see that people who "are committed to do/doing"/"commit themselves to do/doing"/"make a commitment to" etc are all committing to and indeed probably were already committed to ongoing activities/projects/committments etc

Okay okay so "commitment(s)" is hard to spell, even for me (sometimes). ( )